MAJOR PAPERS:

• Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (NASDAQ: TTWO) rejected Electronic Arts Inc's (NASDAQ: ERTS) unsolicited takeover offer as too low, and now EA is turning hostile, going directly to the shareholders to acquire all outstanding shares for $26 each, the same price originally offered to Take-Two, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• No one wants to see The Bear Stearns Companies Inc (NYSE: BSC), rumored to have liquidity problems, fail, but competitors and clients are being extra cautious, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The credit crunch has hit three more funds, the Financial Times said. Drake Management, Global Opportunities Capital and Blue River Asset Management have all been forced to suspend investor withdrawals or close down after being faced by turmoil in the credit markets.

OTHER PAPERS:

• According to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, the UK Times reported that Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) may eventually be superseded as the dominant Internet brand by a company that uses the power of next-generation Web technology.

Some investors/readers probably are not aware that the internet -- critical as it is today for commercial activities and the flow of information -- was not designed to handle the volume and complexity of today's web tasks. Moreover, the appearance of internet traffic jams created an opportunity for Akamai Technologies.

Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM) solutions accelerate and improve the delivery of internet content and applications.

Analysts like Akamai's broad 1,800-member customer base, including many blue-chip companies. Further, analysts also like the fact that AKAM has continued to deliver material revenue increases and earnings gains, despite expansion/infrastructure investments.

Further, the consensus among analysts is that 28,000-server Akamai will continue to have a competitive advantage in its key business segments for at least the next two years. The Reuters F2008/F2009 EPS consensus estimates for AKAM are $1.68/$2.04.

Social scientists, unlike some journalists, are reluctant to label anything a trend until they've amassed and evaluated a great deal of data often over years. A journalist can always cite a lack of information, or the crush of daily (and shorter) deadlines as a reason his/her news story did not describe reality, but if a social scientist errs in a refereed-article, well let's just say the action is not conducive to career advancement.

And that's why many social scientists are reluctant to comment on the impact of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) run for the U.S. presidency: it's way too early to articulate informed conclusions that are likely to endure.

Still, that's not to say that one can't comment on developments that may -- and underscoring "may" -- be indicative of a trend. And along that line, here's what we know about the Obama candidacy regarding voting behavior:

Some investors / readers probably are not aware that the Internet -- critical as it is today for commercial activities and the flow of information -- was not designed to handle the volume and complexity of today's web tasks. Moreover, the appearance of Internet bottlenecks created an opportunity for Akamai Technologies.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) solutions accelerate and improve the delivery of Internet content and applications.

Analysts like Akamai's broad, 1,800-member customer base, including many blue chip companies. Further, analysts also like the fact that AKAM has continued to deliver material revenue increases and earnings gains, despite infrastructure and related expansion investments.

Further, the consensus among analysts is that 28,000-server Akamai will continue to have a competitive advantage in its key business segments for at least the next two years. The Reuters FY 2008/FY 2009 EPS consensus estimates for AKAM are $1.68 to $2.04.

The U.S economy may be in for a period of sluggishness (we hope it's just cyclical sluggishness), but the internet continues its growth ramp, and with this in mind, ValueClick is worth an evaluation

ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) is one of the world's largest and most diversified online marketing services companies.
Analysts see 2008 revenue increasing 15-20% following a likely 15-17% rise in 2007, as the internet continues to grab an increasing share of marketing budgets. Analysts also expect VCLK to add to its corporate customer base.

Meanwhile, the company's revenue mix remains favorable, and operating margins appear to have bottomed in 2007. Further, there's ample room for VCLK to broaden its international footprint. The Reuters F2007/F2008 EPS consensus estimates for VCLK are $0.71/$0.83.

Yesterday I half-heartedly went to see the Pixar / Disney (NYSE: DIS) movie "Ratatouille" with my 11-year-old son. To my great surprise it was fantastic. The story, quality of animation and superb writing were cleverly executed. If Pixar continues to produce this highly imaginative level of animation then the first class Walt Disney tradition lives on.

It may appear that the entertainment industry is being diluted, fragmented and slowly surrendering to the Internet via vast amounts of "product" created by amateurs and wannabees, but this is deceiving. The Web has allowed for the immediate distribution of a diverse range of ideas in new media such as YouTube (Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). It has created a platform to launch what otherwise might be undiscovered talent. But we deceive ourselves if we think this will ever be a substitute for the top talent assembled by Pixar / Disney.

For example, we know that there are more people playing basketball then ever before and they have greater skills too. However, we still pay top dollar and flock to see Kobe and Shaq, even though they now play on opposite coasts. We want to see the best. While the web has proven to be informative, entertaining and democratizing it is not Hollywood. While it has exposed us to new ideas, (and garbage) and provided opportunity to millions of people and new artists, for the most part it is a new delivery system and a new marketing platform. It is not Disney or Dreamworks and it never will be.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was the shining star of the internet bubble in 2000, just before the dot-com crash, and has managed to keep a huge customer base (tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions based on how you calculate it). Yahoo! customers are loyal apparently, even though Google has trounced Yahoo! in recent years in terms of search popularity and overall brand awareness. Like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo! was founded by Stanford grad students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, so that information on the web could be more easily found back when the web was in its infancy -- 1995.

From 1995 to 2001, Yahoo! grew at a rapid clip, and then saw a downward spiral as advertising fortunes started collapsing at the same time Google's "text ad" advertising model started growing by leaps and bounds. It's pretty obvious by now that Yahoo!'s "one ad for all" approach grew quite stale (and so did its revenues) at the same time Google's "customer relevant" and unobtrusive ad model grew an an inversely proportionate rate. Yahoo! has made great strides on the comeback trail under five-year CEO and Hollywood expert Terry Semel, who has modeled Yahoo! as a "relationship builder" to customers (and gotten them to pay for certain services).

This model is quite opposed to Google's "tool-based" customer model that can't touch Yahoo!'s model for creating and enhancing actual relationships with paying customers, beyond just providing easy internet tools for customers while keeping that "relationship" quite distant. Yahoo! shares spit almost three years ago, but have remained between $29 and $44 per share since that time. By contrast, Google's shares have skyrocketed from $85 in August 2004 to over $460 today. In terms of an investment over the past five years, it's hard to draw a conclusion since Google has been publicly traded for less than three years, while Yahoo! has been traded for quite a bit longer than that.